We have not by any means heard the last of the Chinese question. In saying thip, we do not mean that the New Zealand legislature will necessarily have to legislate further on the subject for the present. On the contrary any danger of this colony being orer-run by the Mongolian race — if such danger ever really existed— is, we think, sufficiently guarded agahißt bj the Act of last session. That measure, which applies to all Chinese other than such as have been naturalised m New Zealand, limits the number of Chinese who can be landed m the colony from any vessel to one for every hundred tons of the vessel's tonnage, and this with the poll-tax of £10 per head will operate as a sufficient check, at anyrate for the present. But South Australia has just passed a much more stringent measure— the limitation there being one to every 500 tons — though the Act "is not to come into force until Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland have passed similar measures." Concurrently with the cable message which convoys this information ja another announcing the passing of a Chinese Immigration Restriction Bill by the colony last named, though we arc not as yet aware of its exact provisions. The . attitude taken up by the Australasian colonies has, however, attracted attention m China, and has been the subject of representations to the English Imperial Government, and we also notice that Mr Quong Tart, a prominent Chinese merchant of Sydney, has been summoned to the Flowery J^and m order that he may be consulted on the question by the Government of the Empire of China, But if the authorities of the Celestial Empire are disturbed by the legislation, actual or proposed, pf these colonies, they are naturally much more concerned at the recent legislation of the United States, which goes much farther than a mere limitation of Mongolian immigration by absolutely forbidding it altogether. This it would appear is likely to lead to strong letaliative measures, cable news published yesterday stating, on the authority of an official at the Emperor's Court, Pekin, that "if the Chinese Exclusion Bill were passed by the United States China will have no option but to prohibit the landing of Americans m her territory, and should thiß step not have the desired effect, China would then cancel the treaties entered Into with America, and recall her subjects living m the States, expel all Americans from China, and ceaße to hold intercourse with the United States." As this step if taken may, we should imagine, not improbably be followed by an edict restricting the immigration of British subjects into China m the same way that Chinese immigration is re stricted m the British colonies of Australasia, it is quice on the cards that ere long England, as well as the United States, may have a Chinese difficulty of another character, which will have to be solved either diplomatically or m some other way. If we keep out the Chinese from our country, they can scarcely be blamed for keeping us out of theirs, and we shouldn't wonder if they make the attempt, No ;we have not heard the last of the Chinese question by a long way,

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